Heads up!

Nah, it starts off at the Neutral ending. At least everywhere I read says that. It takes place during that ending and then going past that. Though some things may be altered/changed because of what happens with Nanashi and Dagda. Gotta wait for the game for specifics.

@insaney i've found it hard to keep myself away from spoiling stuff, myself. I allowed myself to watch the trailer in the OP and that thing right there lol. Once the game comes out in Japan I am going hide in a cave, though/

I need to finish LoH:ToCS I before II gets here. Should probably play s'more of it, and hope that the cliche school stuff gets dialed back a bit.

As for Apocalypse, do we know if they cleaned up the combat (SMTIV was a game of rocket tag: If one enemy hit one weakness on your team, you were dead. If you didn't hit an enemy's weakness every round, you were dead. The ability to have defence that actually mitigated damage* would've helped solve that) and made it so that you don't need an actual, physical, map of Tokyo to play it?

*I am aware that there's various uniforms, but they simply change what elements you resist, not your actual defence level. Useful to swap them when fighting bosses, otherwise they don't help much.

You can actually choose which partner you want to help you. Each one has a different role. Asahi does healing, Nozomi is a gun attacker, Gaston is a melee attacker, Navarre is useless (seems he uses items?). Partners can also use their demons.

Mudo/Hama no longer instakill if they hit normally, they do damage. However, if you're in Smirk status, they instakill. Also some other skills may have additional effects when used while Smirking.